The idea of the rule of law taught in the books promises society in which the law is fulfilled, without distinction of status. Who violates the law, public or private person, pays. No state in the world is infallible in this project. There are some better than others. In all cases, the most difficult is to apply the law to political, economic and corporate power.
Brazil achieved unique feat on September 11, 2025. For the first time in history, after attempts and errors, defeats after defeats, after pacifications for strength and amnesty, and generals for attempted coup, abolition of the rule of law and criminal organization.
For the optimistic, the story has changed. From now on, military personnel and members of the coup family know they can be arrested. Dismissed, they will stop trying their crime of pets, the most cultivated in the last century. The historical pendulum between authoritarianism and democracy was broken. This one won.
For the pessimist, it was luck. The unlikely conjunction of a brave judge, a court with the willingness to defend the regime, not only his interest, and a politician as stupid as he is hateful, surrounded by armed and equally stupid steps, triggered a unique and unrepeatable event of enforcement of criminal law to whom, by tradition, commits crime without penalty.
Nothing would have changed in the national vocation for violence. No institution has been renovated, no military man failed to understand dictatorship as democracy, or coup as a revolution. No military man, when he wants to confirm that he authorizes him, will stop calling Ives Gandra. No military man is willing to accept control by the civil power and the prohibition of crossing the line of politics.
The future is open. But both the optimistic and the pessimist, excluding the pocketist, recognize that the fact is superlative and deserves celebration. If it does not determine tomorrow, it gives a breath of hope and energy not only for the defense of democracy, but for its improvement.
Gives some hope against our oblivion addiction. A step of memory appreciation, a legal consequence for the cry of “Brazil never again”. For the first time, we had relevant judicial reaction against leaders of violence in a state that kills on a large scale (by action and omission).
Only the survivors could see. OS, due to action and deliberate omission of the Bolsonaro government, that the Attorney General refuses to investigate, they could not. The dead in the urban peripheries for police violence, shielded by the justice system, could not. Those killed by the military dictatorship, such as Vladimir Herzog and Rubens Paiva, could not. The torture military and guilty of crimes against humanity, still alive and benefited by amnesty, a law that the (Supreme Court) still refuses to revisit, saw and preferred not to speak.
The trial showed court virtues. produced vote without bachelor’s degrees: only fact, proof and legal foundation, one after another; Flávio Dino, without pretense of protagonism, spoke enough to reinforce the rapporteur’s vote; Carmen Lúcia reacted with serenity and charisma, analytical and metaphorical accuracy to the well -known mediocrity of. Cristiano Zanin led the trial with discretion and objectivity, without exhibitionist aparts, without affectation, without irony out of time.
It is not so difficult to explain to the population, as scammers can receive a higher than homicidal sentence. Even if it was difficult, it would be worth the effort. Even if impossible, it would continue to be a possible application of the law. To disagree, the way of the votes must be taken: Fact, Proof and Legal Foundation; Fact, proof and legal foundation. If there was any exaggeration, it was not the penalties.
